Thursday, April 7, 2016

When Daniel Gardner convinced the residents of his Kansas boomtown to advertise for mail-order brides, he never expected the woman he once loved to respond. But Leah Swann steps off the bride train…pregnant and widowed and in need of a husband. Drawn to protect his fragile childhood friend, Daniel proposes a marriage of convenience.

Seeing her onetime best friend waiting to meet the bride train is a wonderful shock for Leah. After her first rocky marriage, a practical partnership with Daniel sounds perfect—as long as her heart doesn't get involved. But when she starts to fall for her husband, will her plans of a fresh start be ruined…or is a real marriage to Daniel exactly what she needs?

Cowboy Creek: Bringing mail-order brides, and new beginnings, to a Kansas boomtown.

Bon Appetit and a Book

I have a passion for cake,
and especially Bundt® cakes. This one is probably one of my very
favorite recipes ever and my family tussles over the last crumbs. I've included
tips at the bottom, because this type of cake bakes differently depending on
the pan and your oven, so experiment a little and watch the baking process
carefully.

If you make this cake, do
let me know how it was. I dropped one off to a neighboring daycare, and the
report was, "This cake is evil. It's the best I've ever had." I think
that means it's a winner.

Glazed Citrus Bundt® Cake

¾ cup softened butter

3 cups sugar

5 eggs

3 Tbsp lemon zest

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 - 2 tsp lemon extract

3 cups sifted flour

1 cup Sprite or Squirt

Preheat oven to 350°.

Grease and flour Bundt® pan well

Beat butter with hand mixer. Add sugar one cup
at a time and mix until creamy.

Add eggs one at a time, mixing briefly after
each.

Stir in lemon zest and extracts.

On medium speed alternate adding flour and
Sprite. Don’t overbeat.

Pour batter into pan.

Baking time varies
depending on your oven and your pan. I use my convection oven setting. My heavy
NordicWare® pan bakes more quickly than my silicone pan. In the
NordicWare® I bake this about 40 minutes, then cover with foil for
another ten. Test and if a toothpick doesn’t come out clean, add more time.
Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack ten minutes. After ten minutes remove
cake from pan and allow to cool.

·
There is a difference between a tube pan and a Bundt® pan. A
tube pan is more shallow, while a Bundt® pan has higher sides. Each
will hold a different amount and will bake the same batter differently.

·
Cooking spray doesn’t cut it for a Bundt® cake. Grease with
shortening and dust with flour to help the cake rise in the pan.

·
Always sift the flour.

·
Over mixing the batter gives cake a tough texture.

·
When creaming sugar and butter, have the butter at room temperature, mix
on medium and add the sugar gradually.

·
Don’t overbeat eggs. Mix with a whisk or on low with the mixer, just
until blended.

·
After removing from the oven, cool the cake on a wire rack for ten
minutes. Any longer and you risk the cake sticking to the pan. Finish cooling
on a rack.

After years of being asked for recipes, Cheryl
St.John spent a summer writing down ingredients and baking times, baking and
asking for beta testers in order to put together this collection of
mouthwatering recipes for Bundt cakes.. Cheryl's philosophy: Eat cake! It's
someone's birthday somewhere.

When I love a song, I
often buy more than one version, so you will notice Can’t Help Falling In Love by three artists. There are more, but I
didn’t include UB40’s or U2Bono’s versions. (This is a true playlist on my
ipod.)

Vision of Love, Mariah Carey

Can’t Help
Falling in Love, Elvis Presley

The Long and
Winding Road, The Beatles

Can’t Help
Falling in Love, Ingrid Michaelson

Songbird, Fleetwood Mac

Make You Feel
My Love, Adele

Because You
Loved Me, Celine Dion

Can’t Help
Falling in Love,

Evan Rachel Wood & Sam Palladio, Strange Magic soundtrack

I Knew I Loved
You, Savage Garden

All My Life, Linda Ronstadt & Aaron Neville

Just the Way
You Are, Bruno Mars

How-to Tips for Aspiring Writers

When
plotting or editing, ask yourself these questions to make sure you’ve built a
solid story:

What
is at stake and is it important to the character?

How
could this situation get worse?

Could
this conflict be easily resolved if the characters talked it over?

Did
you come up with unpredictable circumstances?

Does
your character react according to his background/motivation?

What
could happen to make the character change?

Did
the conflict create tension for one or more characters?

Does
the conflict force the character into action?

Did
you use scenes and viewpoint changes for tension and pacing?

Are
your characters a cast of diversified personalities who react to each other?

What does the conflict make your character learn about
himself?

Focus on the task before you today,
not the hundred and fifty pages left to go.

If the middle of the book
intimidates you, think smaller. We’re conditioned to think big—the big
concept, the overall picture—but this is one time when thinking smaller can be
beneficial.

Focus on just this scene, just this
chapter. Getting overwhelmed by the size of the project is like kids asking,
“Are we there yet?” If they’d get involved in their game or read their book,
the time would pass more quickly. This is exactly the same concept. An
are-we-there-yet attitude can make the trip seem longer.

Looking ahead at the size of the
project will unnerve you. Concentrate on the immediate story, and don’t look to
the rest of the book looming ahead of you. You’re going to get there
eventually.

Cheryl’s book Writing With Emotion, Tension &
Conflict by Writers Digest is available in print and ebook versions.

The
first story I ever wrote was called The
Pink Dress. I stapled the pages into a book and drew a cover. I don’t
remember how old I was. Maybe eleven. Many years later, I wrote a short story,
submitted it, and received a rejection from Redbook
Magazine. I was fourteen and I still have the story and the rejection slip.
I still remember the feeling of rejection and disappointment when I received
it. My first complete novel was titled The
Rebel. I’m actually too embarrassed to tell you what it was about. I was
sixteen.

I
wrote in notebooks for years while my children were growing up, and I started a
couple of books that way. I never got serious until my youngest daughter went
to first grade. I was lost without her, but instead of having another baby,
going to school or getting a real job, like many women with empty nest
syndrome, I decided that was the time to write the book I’d always wanted to
write.

All The Tender
Tomorrows.
Great title, eh? Ambitious undertaking. Great characters. No plot. Passive,
passive, passive writing. A totally unsellable time period. I typed it on an
old manual Smith-Corona, with an “A” that struck half a line below all the
other letters, and the manuscript underwent at least three or four complete
rewrites.

I
didn’t know it was passively written. I didn’t know it was a time period no one
would buy. I thought it had a great plot—I was involved. lol I sent it to many, many publishers—most major
publishers, in fact. What they should have said in their rejection letters was:
“This doesn’t fit our present needs, and if it ever does, we’ll shoot
ourselves.” But they didn’t.

However,
I did not receive constructive rejections; I got vague form rejections. But I
did learn to persevere. I wrote the whole thing from beginning to end and
rewrote it as many times and as many ways as I knew how. And if one of those
publishers had told me how to change it to make it better, I’d have done that, too.

Soft Summer Magic came next, a contemporary.
Spoiled rich girl gets her comeuppance when her father’s Midwest bank goes
broke and she has to work as a nanny for the guy who maintained her pool—and
she learns he is the owner of the company. A slim bit of conflict. A lot of
romance and some scenes I still remember…not terrible. Would it sell today?
Perhaps rewritten. Will I? No.

Brotherly Love a.k.a. A Kindred Oath followed that. It was
another contemporary. A young man’s dying brother makes him promise to take
care of his widow after he’s gone. Some conflict. Some plot. Fair characters.
Not redeemable. But I sent it out, too. Both of those were rejected by all the contemporary
publishers.

Through All The Tears. This was an attempt
at the inspirational market. (I also tried to sell articles and devotionals and
all other kinds of projects in between these stories.) Dumb story. Dumb plot.
Didn’t finish it. But it had some really well-written pages in it, so I was
developing something. A voice perhaps.

The Birthright was a story I loved
from its very conception. I fell in love with my research on this endeavor. The
first draft had page after page after page of all the fascinating details I’d
learned. I included nearly my whole notebook full of notes into the story.

Mind
you, this was still before I ever found a writers’ organization. I was reading
the outdated how-to books from the library and thinking I could do this. I
worked on this story for a few years. After several rewrites—and buying a
second-hand IBM Selectric typewriter, I had a good thing going. I really
thought I was uptown with that electric beast. Baby, I had arrived. This book
would be a best seller.

I
mean this typewriter even had those nifty little eraser papers you held against
the paper and re-typed over—no more globs of White Out all over the striker
keys, or White Out plastered so thick on the page that it chipped off all over
my desk. I did great—unless I took the page out of the carriage. It was not
impossible to get it back just exactly the way I took it out so I could fix it,
but there’s only so much time in a year, you know?

I
submitted that manuscript to all the publishers. And they all rejected it. By
that time I was the query letter queen. I knew just what to say to get editors
to ask for my entire manuscript. Everyone asked to see it–no one wanted to buy
it.

Around
this time I found Romance Writers of America and a local chapter. And I started
learning. All along I’d thought I was so prolific. I’d never had writer’s
block. I just sat down at the keyboard and wrote and wrote and wrote. Words
flew off my fingers onto the pages.

Well,
then I learned about passive writing and studied Dwight Swain’s Techniques of the Selling Writer, and
found out about motivation/reaction and feeling/action/speech and CONFLICT! And
I learned why I’d blissfully written so easily for so long. Ignorance was
bliss. I was writing crap. Fixing it was a monumental task.

At
this point, since I’d learned so much and was now such an improved writer, I
decided to start something new.

This Business of
Love.
(I’m still going to use this title someday.) Another contemporary attempt. I
had joined a critique group by this time. Boy, was it hard learning how much
work my writing really needed.

The
historical characters wouldn’t leave me alone, so I went back to The Birthright. I rewrote it. And then I
got very, very, very brave—and had it critiqued by the late Diane Wicker-Davis,
an Avon author and member of our chapter at that time. A few weeks later, I got
the critique; Diane went over her thoughts with me. In red ink she’d Xed out
page after page and written “nothing happening” in the margins. I couldn’t look
at it or go back to any writing for two solid months. But in my heart, I
realized she knew what she was talking about. I was never going to have a
better opportunity, so I rewrote it again, using her edits and suggestions. And
I submitted it again--and had it rejected by an agent who actually gave me two
pages of suggestions. I rewrote it again. And she rejected it again. I stuck it
on a shelf.

My
next project was Rain Shadow. By that
time I was taking care of my first grandchild while my daughter worked, still
raising two children at home, and working 40 plus hours a week at a “job” job.
When I look back, I can’t imagine how I managed it all, but I did.

I
wrote every available minute. When I was writing Rain Shadow, I was working some pretty crazy hours, but whenever I
wasn’t at work, I was in front of my computer. My children took turns fixing
supper, and they learned to leave me alone while I was working. My husband,
who’d never turned on the washer in his life, learned to do laundry. I wasn’t
always happy with the results, but hey, he did it. For nearly a year, I barely
attended any family gatherings. My husband took the kids and left me home,
undisturbed, to work.

The
first editor I sent the manuscript to was one I’d met at a conference—I spent
the entire morning before the appointment in the bathroom being sick. She asked
to see the complete manuscript. For months, I waited on pins and needles. Then
she rejected it. Being me, I had the manuscript out to other people and places,
too, and soon an agent called to tell me she loved the story and she was sure
she could sell it. Harlequin bought it four months later.

Then
I learned about line edits and copy edits and cover art sheets, and after the
dust settled, I went to the pile and thought, “Hmmm….” I pulled out The Birthright, which I had retitled Heaven Can Wait in one of the many
rewrites, and mailed it to my editor, with a letter asking what I could do to
get her to buy it. A few weeks later, she called with the answer. “Cut a
hundred pages.” I did. She cut more. I finally saw that book in print, and both
of those stories are still available as digital books.

I’ve
come a long way since stapling pages and drawing my own covers, but I still
enjoy the process of creating stories.

2.If
you could travel to a top literary destination that you’ve never been to, where
would you go?

Japan
(Shogun)

Australia
(Australia)

Pandora
(Avatar)

And
I’d love to be on set anywhere while a movie was being made. Behind the scenes
is my thing.

3.Out of
all the books you’ve read, which one would you turn into a book to film
adaptation, (if it has not been done before)?

With
this super power I would first turn all of my own books into movies.

As
for a book I’ve not written, I would choose Twice
Loved by LaVyrle Spencer.

4.List
five adjectives to describe yourself.

optimistic

(discouraged)
perfectionist

creative

tenacious

last-minute

7.
What’s your favorite place for inspiration?

I
may be old school in this respect, because I know a lot of authors write in
coffee shops or on their decks in summer, but I’ve conditioned myself over many
years to sit at my desk with a cup of coffee and create stories.

I
brainstorm the stories differently, however. I gather a fresh binder, colored
fine-point felt-tip pens, the character grids I use for plotting conflict, name
books (and the cup of coffee) and spread out on the sofa, where I write down
everything I know about the story, make a list of adjectives describing each
character, decide the inciting incident that launches the story, change names
until I find the ones that fit perfectly. Sometimes this takes a whole day, and
from there I prepare the binder and go to my desk and write the synopsis.

It’s
not a place that inspires me, but
rather catching the excitement of the story in my head.

8.
Do you have one thing that can completely motivate you while writing?

A
deadline. Without fail.

9. What
is your favorite quote by a writer who inspires you?

“One of the few things I know about
writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it all, right away,
every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for
another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something
good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more
will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from
beneath, like well water.”

- Annie
Dillard

What’s your favorite reading/book meme of all time?

Children
are made readers on the laps of their parents

11. While
you were writing, did you ever feel as if you were one of the characters?

I
do what I call “method writing,” where I I place myself in the character’s
situation and become them. When I imagine their past history, the events that
shaped their lives, it helps me know how they feel and react to situations.
Sometimes when a scene isn’t working quite right, I correct myself and become
the character, and most of the time, I’m either trying to make them behave out
of character or I’m in the wrong viewpoint.

12. What
are you working on next?

I
just finished Mistletoe Reunion, a
novella in the October 2016 anthology Cowboy
Creek Christmas. Sherri Shackleford and I sweep readers back to 1868 Kansas
and revisit the town and the characters from our trilogy with Karen Kirst. This
was a fun project because Sherri and I got to write in our characters from Want Ad Wedding and Special Delivery Baby and bring new residents to town as well. Our
stories happen simultaneously between late October and Christmas, so we
coordinated all the details and enjoyed creating more stories set in Cowboy
Creek.

A couple extras if
you need more text:

Writing is a solitary job,
and social media provides a way to interact and connect with readers, other
writers and so many interesting people. If you use social media well, it’s
about relationships. I probably enjoy Facebook and Pinterest the most of all my
portals. I create Pinterest boards for each of my story projects, and those
sure help when it’s time to fill out cover art fact sheets. Pinterest a great
way to gather ideas and information on clothing, and locations, and I like to
find faces to portray my characters. I create boards for the things I like to
do and collect, as well. I sure spend a lot less money on decorating books and
magazines than I used to. And the chocolate recipes aren’t bad either.

email
Cheryl St.John at: SaintJohn@aol.com

Visit
me on the web: http://www.cherylstjohn.net/

Read
my blog, From the Heart: http://cherylstjohn.blogspot.com/

Like
my Facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/CherylStJ

Follow
me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/_CherylStJohn_

I’m
a Pinterest junkie! http://pinterest.com/cheryl_stjohn

Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/CherylStJohn

What advice would you
give your 18 year-old self?

Use a lot of sunscreen.

Write a lot.

Learn a lot. Challenge your thinking.

Enjoy every moment of being young. Be
proactive.

Write more. Try harder. Live your dream.

Be kind to yourself.

Where do you look for writing inspiration?

I love movies. Old movies, new
movies, funny movies, romantic movies, suspenseful movies—okay you get the
picture. Movies inspire me. I love the
dialogue and the expressions. I study
movies to learn how to make stories emotional and engaging by learning what
engages my emotions. Every so often I hear someone say they don’t watch
movies—or can’t stay awake through one, and I just can’t imagine it. I love
movies nearly as much as I love books. And of course, romantic movies are among
my favorites. I rewatch the ones
I love.

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What Book Obsessed Chicks is all about.

Hello all, it's Kim Rocha.. I want to welcome you all to the blog and thank you for stopping by for a look. There's nothing I like better than helping a reader like myself find a new author and some great books to read.

Don't be bashful, please leave a comment, I love to hear from you!

This blog is totally ME... I only post what I truly like. I don't go with the trends or with what's "hot". Sometimes I'm stuck in the West with some really awesome Cowboys and sometimes I'm immersed in Historical. Once in a while I'll read some exciting paranormal... Book Obsessed Chicks Blog isn't flashy with dozens of posts a day and I don't sell anything. I like to keep it simple.

If you like my posts, please let me know... I always love to go through comments and observations. Thank you for your support over the last few years...

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Ratings

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REVIEW REQUESTS

AT THIS TIME, I APOLOGIZE, BUT I AM NOT ABLE TO TAKE REVIEW REQUESTS, UNLESS THE BOOKS ARE IN MY PREFERRED GENRES. HISTORICAL ROMANCE, WESTERN ROMANCE, PARANORMAL. APPROVAL WILL GO ON A CASE BY CASE BASIS.